Thursday, October 25, 2007

Officially, Chris Flis is a site manager for The Woodlands Xploration Station, a satellite facility of The Houston Museum of Natural Science that houses more than 10 dinosaurs, an impressive collection of giant minerals, live bugs and much more - and he's a paleontologist at heart. He's been traveling to remote areas to find fossils since he was a kid, and has had the pleasure of digging into ancient history in Ireland, Nova Scotia, and England. His current research includes identifying and cataloging Eocene marine species present in fossil-bearing areas near College Station. With the Museum, he's dug extensively in Seymour, along with other pre-historic sites in Texas, as well as Kansas and the Morrison Formation in Wyoming. He's also an enthusiastic fossil photographer and many of his photos are featured in this blog.

About

If you're interested in more general science updates, please visit the Museum's new blog.
For about a year, the Museum has been sending a team of paleontologists and volunteers to Seymour, TX, a little town about 2 hours outside of the Dallas/Fort Worth area that happens to be the world's best site to find Dimetrodon - the biggest, baddest, pre-dinosaur predator.
Led by famous paleontologist Dr. Bob Bakker, the team uses a "CSI" approach - picking out every bit of fossilized evidence they can find, from teeth to tiny bone fragments - in the quest to discover exactly what creatures died here 290 million years ago - and more importantly, how they lived.
While they're in the field, you can follow their exploits here. They'll be posting daily with pictures and information about what they have found and what it all means. You can explore more about the species they are finding and the answers they are looking for at the links below.
They would love to answer your questions - so come back, and post often.

***Note

The team has now returned from Seymour, and though we will be posting relevant updates as they occur, daily discoveries are on hold until they return to the field. Please feel free to explore the links below to learn all about what they've found - and leave us a question or comment to let the team know what you think.